Comment on A little essay I wrote about "mods are power tripping"
poVoq@slrpnk.net 4 weeks ago
I think this is the root of the “mods are assholes” issue. It’s not that the mods are power tripping. It’s that they are placed in a role that will lead inevitably to toxic behavior, unless someone turns out to be a solid gold saint, which few of us are.
While part of it, I think the bigger issue is that the typical male participant has “main character syndrome”, and when a mod doesn’t want to spend a lot of time with them specifically because they have better things to do, these participants turn to whining about unfair treatment, when in reality it is just their overinflated sense of entitlement.
PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 4 weeks ago
This is absolutely true. The level of entitlement and lack of appreciation that the average toxic user has for the whole effort and kindness that goes into providing a volunteer Lemmy network for them to come and be a part of, and how little regard they have for it, is breathtaking.
I’m saying that the two sides of that coin, users who behave in not ideal ways and mods that behave in not ideal ways, are of a piece and feed into one another. By inviting the first and making an unspoken promise that nothing in particular is required of anybody to come in and use the network in any way that they feel like, whether it adds to the community or is destructive to it, we’re welcoming a type of behavior that is not reasonable to ask a volunteer moderator to deal with indefinitely, which is part of what over time leads to the second. I think fixing the first problem is absolutely necessary in order for the network, in the long run, to be a nice community.
poVoq@slrpnk.net 4 weeks ago
I don’t think these people are necessarily “toxic users”, but rather just deluded ones. It’s a bit like that saying about privilege… you only think about it when someone is threatening to take it away.
The asymmetry of effort between moderators and regular participants is what forces this hidden entitlement into the open.